Data appendix
The indicator set with its sources, the source registers, the licences of every kind of material and the formats of the edition.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1Orbit is shared infrastructure under growing load
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Severe storm in a crowded low orbit
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
B.1The indicator set
| Indicator | Value | Unit | Year | State | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Objects catalogued by the US Space Surveillance Network | 34,054 | objects | 2026 | Reported | 4 |
| Spacecraft catalogued, active and defunct | 19,154 | spacecraft | 2026 | Reported | 4 |
| Rocket bodies and other debris catalogued | 14,900 | objects | 2026 | Reported | 4 |
| Active satellites in a public tracker | 17,099 | satellites | 2026 | Reported | 3 |
| Active satellites of one constellation | 11,148 | satellites | 2026 | Reported | 3 |
| Tracked objects, ESA | ≈40,000 | objects | 2024 | Reported | 1 |
| Debris larger than 10 cm, ESA estimate | >50,000 | objects | 2024 | Reported | 1 |
| Debris larger than 1 cm, ESA estimate | >1.2 | million objects | 2024 | Reported | 1 |
| Launches in 2025 | >300 | launches | 2025 | Reported | 2 |
| Payloads placed in orbit in 2025 | >4,000 | payloads | 2025 | Reported | 2 |
| CRASH Clock, June 2025 | 5.5 | days | 2025 | Reported | 9 |
| CRASH Clock, 2018 | 164 | days | 2018 | Reported | 9 |
| Aluminum oxides from reentry in 2022, modelled | ≈17 | metric tons | 2022 | Reported | 10 |
| Aluminum above natural level, 2022, modelled | 29.5 | % | 2022 | Reported | 10 |
| GPS private-sector benefit, US, 1984 to 2017 | ≈1.4 | USD trillion | 2017 | Reported | 15 |
| Average cost of a GPS outage to the US | ≈1 | USD billion a day | 2019 | Reported | 15 |
B.2Global source register
The governed source set behind this edition. Each source keeps its authority, coverage, cadence and role; categories describe origin, not truth.
Domains bound by the register
- INF
- DAT
- CLI
- FOO
- ENE
- FIN
- TRD
- WAT
- HLT
- MIN
| Source | Category | Coverage | Period | Cadence | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NASA Orbital Debris Quarterly News4 | national space agency | catalogued objects | 2026 | quarterly | catalogue counts |
| NASA orbital debris FAQ5 | national space agency | tracked and small debris | 2026 | continuous | debris |
| ESA Space Environment Reports12 | intergovernmental agency | world | 2024 and 2025 | annual | debris and launches |
| Public satellite statistics3 | independent expert tracker | active satellites | 2026 | continuous | traffic |
| NASA article on the 2024 storm7 | national space agency | storm effects | 2024 | one-off | space weather |
| NOAA scales page8 | national agency | storm scale | 2026 | continuous | space weather |
| NIST GPS study page15 | national standards body | US | 2019 | one-off | navigation |
| UK Government attribution20 | government | Ukraine and Europe | 2022 | one-off | cyber |
| FCC Second Report and Order11 | national regulator | US | 2022 | one-off | disposal rule |
| EU Council note14 | EU institution | EU | 2025 | per meeting | policy |
B.3Regional reading, space across ten clusters
Regional plates follow with the regional editions. This page gives the regional reading of orbital infrastructure and exposure in table form and ranks no region.
| Region | Principal hazards | Systems most exposed | Baseline evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| North America | federal disposal rule; national catalogue; many launches | rules, tracking | FCC11; NASA4 |
| South America | early national programmes; users of navigation | navigation | regional evidence (not bound) |
| Europe | EU Space Act proposal; ESA mitigation approach; Galileo | rules, navigation | EU Council14; ESA12; EUSPA21 |
| Eurasia | launch and catalogue activity; export controls | traffic, rules | NASA catalogue4 |
| Middle East and North Africa | users of navigation and satellite services | navigation | regional evidence (not bound) |
| Africa | access to satellite services; skills | access, workforce | regional evidence (not bound) |
| South Asia | national space programmes | launch, skills | regional evidence (not bound) |
| East Asia | new constellation launches in the 2026 launch table | traffic, launch | NASA launch table4 |
| ASEAN | signatories and users of satellite services | access, rules | NASA Artemis page16 |
| Oceania-Pacific | users of navigation; ground stations | navigation | regional evidence (not bound) |
B.4Cluster card: low Earth orbit near 550 km
- orbital shell
- constellations
- debris
- maneuvering
- Systems in view
- constellation satellites, debris, tracking networks
- Defining events
- the May 2024 storm raised drag on thousands of satellites7
- Couplings
- SPW → INF drag; INF → DAT services; GOV → INF disposal rules
- Capability evidence
- ESA reports about 80% of low-orbit rocket bodies meeting its five-year standard1
- Gaps
- conjunction counts; maneuver counts; objects too small to track
- Agenda items
- Q-01 · Q-02
ESA states that around 550 km the debris that poses a threat is of the same order of magnitude as the number of active satellites, and that about a quarter of constellation payloads fly below 500 km [1].
TRAFFIC
A crowded shell
The May 2024 storm raised drag on thousands of satellites, and one NASA mission lost altitude and entered safe mode [7].
WEATHER
Storm drag
The FCC shortened its disposal benchmark for low-orbit space stations to five years in 2022, and ESA adopted a five-year standard in 2023 [11] [1].
RULES
Disposal in five years
B.5How countries appear in the space edition
Countries enter the space edition through the readiness chapters of their own national editions, on one card grammar. They are read against peer distributions and thresholds, never ranked.
| Card field | What it shows | Source |
|---|---|---|
| WEFH+B state | each core system against peer distribution bands | national edition |
| Couplings | the national dependency matrix | national edition |
| Risk objects | the national risk portfolio | national edition |
| Capability rungs | the national capability ladder | national edition |
| Evidence age | oldest and newest source dates | national source register |
Editions in the 2026 Baseline programme
26national
countries and unions
10regional
clusters
16global
flagship and sector
20frontier
technology reports
How to read a country card
- Each system is shown against the distribution of its peers, with thresholds where they exist
- Couplings and risk objects come from the country’s own national edition
- Capability rungs record evidence, not a judgement of institutions
- Evidence age is printed, so older national data are visible as such
| Wave | Countries and unions | State |
|---|---|---|
| W0 | Canada | ISSUED |
| W1 | United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, European Union, Switzerland | PLANNED |
| W2 | Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Türkiye, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, African Union, India, China, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia | PLANNED |
B.6Licences
| Material | Licence |
|---|---|
| Text | CC BY 4.0 |
| Data | on the licence of each source; Nexus tables CC BY 4.0 |
| Figures | Nexus figures CC BY 4.0; third-party as credited |
| Maps | boundary source and licence printed on each plate |
| Metadata | CC0 1.0, as Zenodo publishes it |
| Third-party data, figures and text | The source’s own licence, credited where it is used; never relicensed |
| Nexus-authored text, tables and figures: CC BY 4.0 (SPDX CC-BY-4.0). Map plates print their boundary source and licence. | |
B.7Formats and provenance
| Format | Kind | State | What it is | Identifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web edition | HTML | On this site | Draft in stewardship review; every value resolves to its source. | NR-XTECH-SPACE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0 |
| Print edition | At release | A4 portrait · screen, print and archival PDF, signed with the web edition at release. | NR-XTECH-SPACE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0 | |
| Indicator data | CSV · JSON | On this site | 16 indicators with unit, year, status and source; the machine-readable copy ships with the evidence bundle at release. | NR-XTECH-SPACE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE data release v1 |
| Figures | SVG · PNG | On this site | 4 on the web edition: headline figure, figure 1.3, coupling instrument, capability ladder. | FIG-XTECH-SPACE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-* |
| Slides | Not recorded | No slide deck is recorded for this edition. | ||
| Evidence brief | HTML · PDF | Not recorded | No evidence brief is recorded for this edition. | |
| Dataset with DOI | DataCite | At release | Concept and version DOI are minted at deposit; none is recorded yet. |
Provenance
- Edition pack
- The edition’s content pack (JSON), from which the print and web editions are built
- Evidence cut
- DC-XTECH-SPACE-GLOBAL-2026-B0, closed 30 September 2026
- Reproducibility
- sourced values cited; analytical values reproducible from stated parameters
- Self-check
- 14 of 23 at evidence close; a fail on any item blocks release
- Review
- five passes scheduled before release (in Annex C)
- Publisher of record
- The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) for the Nexus Consortium
- Corrections
- Registry correction pathway; upheld corrections are published as notices with a new version
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 4NASA Orbital Debris Program Office (ed.), Orbital Debris Quarterly News, Volume 30, Issue 3, September 2026 (satellite box score as of 4 August 2026; launch table May to July 2026). National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Houston. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 3McDowell, J., Active satellites statistics page (state at 2026 Oct 26; independent expert tracker, not an official catalogue; headline 17,099, category total 17,098). Jonathan McDowell, Cambridge MA. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 1ESA (ed.), ESA Space Environment Report 2025 (summary page dated 1 April 2025; data through the end of 2024). European Space Agency, Paris. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 2ESA (ed.), ESA Space Environment Report 2026 (summary page dated 14 September 2026; data through the end of 2025; the full report PDF was not opened). European Space Agency, Paris. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 9Thiele, S., Heiland, S.R., Boley, A.C. and Lawler, S.M., An Orbital House of Cards: Frequent Satellite Close Conjunctions, arXiv:2512.09643, submitted 10 December 2025, version 3 of 29 June 2026 (abstract page read; preprint, peer review not located; the abstract of this version gives 5.5 days and 164 days). arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 10Ferreira, J.P., Huang, Z., Nomura, K. and Wang, J., Potential Ozone Depletion From Satellite Demise During Atmospheric Reentry in the Era of Mega-Constellations, Geophysical Research Letters 51, 2024, DOI 10.1029/2024GL109280 (full text read; modelling study). American Geophysical Union, Washington. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03. doi:10.1029/2024GL109280back
- 15NIST (ed.), Economic Benefits of the Global Positioning System to the US Private Sector (news page dated 2 October 2019, updated 3 February 2025; study by RTI International sponsored by NIST; about USD 1.4 trillion in 2017 dollars, 1984 to 2017). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 5NASA Orbital Debris Program Office (ed.), Orbital debris frequently asked questions (more than 34,000 objects catalogued as of August 2026; about 100 million millimeter-sized pieces; 41 ISS avoidance maneuvers since 1999). National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Houston. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 7NASA (ed.), What NASA is learning from the biggest geomagnetic storm in 20 years (article dated 9 May 2025; page updated 25 September 2026). National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 8NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (ed.), NOAA Space Weather Scales explanation page (G5 extreme geomagnetic storm). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 20UK Government (ed.), Russia behind cyber attack with Europe-wide impact an hour before Ukraine invasion (news story of 10 May 2022; company statements are quoted by the government and are weak evidence). Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, London. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 11FCC (ed.), Second Report and Order, FCC 22-74, Mitigation of Orbital Debris in the New Space Age, IB Docket Nos. 22-271 and 18-313, adopted 29 September 2022, released 30 September 2022. Federal Communications Commission, Washington. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 14General Secretariat of the Council (ed.), Note 15830/25, Regulation on the safety, resilience and sustainability of space activities in the Union (EU Space Act), progress report for the Competitiveness Council of 8 and 9 December 2025, interinstitutional file 2025/0335 (COD), 26 November 2025. Council of the European Union, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 12ESA (ed.), ESA Zero Debris approach (web page, undated; target 2030). European Space Agency, Paris. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 21EUSPA (ed.), Galileo (web page last modified 25 September 2026; no satellite count on the page). European Union Agency for the Space Programme, Prague. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 16POST-CLOSE, context only: NASA (ed.), Artemis Accords (web page; 78 signatories; most recent signing on 28 October 2026). National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back